RACE FOR CITY HALL: QUEENS

RACE FOR CITY HALL: QUEENS; Four-Way Contest for Council In Borough's Latino Heartland

By JONATHAN P. HICKS

Published: September 6, 2001

A seemingly endless number of restaurants selling Colombian cuisine along Roosevelt Avenue in Corona, Queens, are punctuated with travel agencies advertising special fares to Mexico and storefronts promoting discount shipping rates for packages to Peru. Shoe stores alert shoppers that their sales clerks speak Spanish and few store signs fail to promote their wares in both Spanish and English.

Over the last decade, the 21st Council District, which spreads from Corona to Elmhurst and includes Jackson Heights, has become the Hispanic heartland of Queens, with huge immigration from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Colombia. And, this year, the district, and the borough, is about to elect its first Hispanic council member.

Who that will be is at the center of a fierce competition among four candidates in Tuesday's primary in this overwhelmingly Democratic district.

One is Angel L. Del Villar, 45, a former Golden Gloves champion boxer who is a lawyer in Corona. Mr. Del Villar is a founder of the Dominican-Hispanic Congress for Community Empowerment, a nonprofit group that provides immigration help.

Another candidate is Aida A. Gonzalez-Jarrin, 60, who until recently served as the director of cultural affairs for Claire Shulman, the Queens borough president.

A third candidate is Hiram Monserrate, 34, a Democratic district leader who is a former New York City police officer. Mr. Monserrate is on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

And the fourth candidate is Luis Rosero, 28, a former aide to United States Representative Nydia M. Velázquez; he recently served as press secretary for the Hispanic outreach office of the Democratic National Committee.

The candidates are running to succeed Helen M. Marshall, who has served in the Council for 10 years and is barred by the city's term limit laws from running for re-election. Ms. Marshall is now running for the Democratic nomination for Queens borough president.

By their own admission, the candidates say there is little that separates them on the issues facing the district. They all favor large spending initiatives to build new schools and relieve school overcrowding in a district whose population has grown sharply in the last 10 years. They all also want large spending plans under which the city would encourage -- if not take outright responsibility for -- the construction of hundreds of thousands of new housing units.

But some differences are apparent. In this race, much of the attention has been placed on Mr. Monserrate by his opponents.

In a district where Dominican voters are expected to represent a vast majority of the district's Hispanic primary voters, Mr. Monserrate, whose family is from Puerto Rico, has been accused by his opponents of portraying himself as a Dominican. And they accuse him of sending campaign volunteers to neighborhood stores to persuade merchants not to display his opponents' posters and of having the volunteers tear down any that they saw.

Mr. Monserrate denies all the allegations, suggesting that such charges are a natural byproduct of a campaign that is going well. In financial terms, Mr. Monserrate is leading the group in campaign contributions, with $68,000. He has received another $74,430 in matching funds from the Campaign Finance Board.

Ms. Gonzalez-Jarrin has collected $30,000 in contributions and $71,492 in matching funds. Mr. Rosero raised nearly $24,000 in contributions and received $45,288 in matching funds. Mr. Del Villar raised $24,300 in contributions but has not received any public matching funds.

Each candidate is working to capture the votes of the small but significant black population in the district, which could account for a quarter of the votes in the primary.

Mr. Rosero, whose family is from Ecuador, has put together a large network of volunteers and has sent many mailings to voters. He has been endorsed by a number of local newspapers, and he has honed a particular message to voters about the need to rid the commercial thoroughfares of illegal vendors and to improve street cleaning and sanitation services in the district.

''If it sounds like I'm tough on crime and quality of life issues, I am,'' he said. ''But the illegal street vendors are a problem in this community because they can serve as a front for prostitution, drugs and other crimes.''

Mr. Monserrate has been endorsed by the Queens Democratic Party and several elected officials in the borough. He has also been endorsed by several law enforcement groups (he is a founder of the Latino Officers Association) and a number of union locals. He said that he would gain the support of a large majority in the district because of his proposal to take money from the city budget as well as the pension funds of large unions to finance the construction of new housing that would be made available to union members ''at a reasonable price.''

Mr. Del Villar said that despite his relatively low fund-raising totals, he would look for support from the vast number of his fellow Dominicans in the district. He also said that his goal of spearheading programs to improve relations between the police and residents would be greeted enthusiastically. ''I'm not just appealing to Dominicans, but to the entire district,'' he said. ''And the relationship between the community and the police is important to everyone here.''

Ms. Gonzalez-Jarrin, who is also from Ecuador, has been endorsed by Ms. Shulman. She said that voters would recognize her experience. ''I'm the only candidate who has the experience of working with budgets, with capital construction projects,'' she said. ''Plus, I'm the only grandma in the race. And everyone knows that a grandma never fails.''